About

So, what is Viva la Fotosíntesis?

It is an educational game to learn in a funny way the basic of the photosynthesis and cellular respiration.

You don't need to know anything about the subject, you will learn while playing the game, and this is the concept I base on to design my educational games.

Playing games can teach you something, by example strategy, mathematics, languages, puzzle solve, shape association, tactical etc. so Why to use this channel to teach concepts for school?

Viva la Fotosíntesis is an idea that was born as a recommendation from teachers who wants to introduce a new didacticals way to teach subjects, so I started to work with some ideas and create a game that you can play without any knowledge of the subject, as a book does while reading the game teach while playing.

A demo test with regional teachers

A simple design

One of the things I have working a lot is the game art, as this game is designed for school teachers wants simple graphics in the artwork so players or students can focus on the gameplay and the educational content.

The main feature of this game is to learn while playing, so you can remember easily the elements that plants need.

As this is a working prototype of the game I can consider, in fact, I will do to design a new artwork to match both worlds, schools, and privates.

Do the plants breathe?

Yes, they do! maybe you know it but if not, you learn something new, this is the way the game teaches you, of course, plants don't have lungs and don't breathe as we do, plants do the cellular respiration that is very similar in a chemical way even with oxygen.

Check out the new art!

I still want to keep the art design as simple as possible because I want that the player or the student focus on the game content but I know most of you like good quality of graphics, As this is a prototype of the game and still not in production I can make some adjustment in the art design, I hope you like it!

Looks how cool the board game is open

A slight change in the game board and tokens

The new card cell with a better focus for the chemistry steps

How to play?

This is a description of the parts you need to do in your turn, first of all, the game setup is something like this:

A normal game set up for 3 players

In each turn you have 3 main steps:

1- To place: first you must place a root of a leaf using your glucose chip you have, but if you still not create any glucose then you can not place any leaf or root.

2- Collect: for each leaf your plant have you will collect a Carbon dioxide and a solar energy chip and for each root on the water a water chip, your base log count as a root. For instance, if you have a plant with 3 leaves and 2 roots on the water you will collect 3 CO2 chips, 3 solar energy chips and 2 water chips.

3- Chemistry: And then use your element to create more glucose if you can, in one turn you can create several glucose chips if you have enough elements.

So this is the turn wheel diagram:

Each player must have a cell card with full elements on it. Start locating your base log in one of the outer hexagons.

By example:

At the beginning you must decide what to do with your first glucose, a root or a leaf, you must always locate your roots near your other roots, you can not place a root on a rock, remember for each root on the water you will collect a water chip.

The first player that can place 3 roots near the other plant wins the game.

Here seems the red player has no luck, and the blue is the winner.

You collect elements depending on how many leaves or roots you have, so this is very important as a strategy to grow faster.

In this example, the player will collect 1 water element, 2 solar energy and 2 carbon dioxide.

To do the chemistry follow this diagram:

In your chemistry step, you can generate as many components as elements you have, that means it is possible you can generate much glucose in one turn.

This is how you create chemical energy and oxygen

Once you get the chemical energy you will need carbon dioxide to generate glucose

The cellular respiration is an optional part of the game, could be that the water element will run out because is a finite element like in real life, but you can turn the oxygen into the water again using a glucose chip.

Here in the game, you can use one single glucose chip to convert as many oxygens as leaves you have, for instance, if your plant has 3 leaves you can use one glucose to convert 3 oxygen into 3 water and 3 carbon dioxide.

Use glucose with the oxygen to generate water and carbon dioxide

And that's it!

those are the step to complete in each turn, be careful in every decision you take it might not seams but the game has a strong strategy part.

An extra tip!

Locate your log on the water!! ;)

This is a description of the parts of the game

Shipment cost

The game is quite small a box of 31x20x5 cm resulting almost the same price for international shipment.

A bit of history

It has been almost a year since the main idea of the game, most of the work was to create a working game mechanic that can mix the educational concept with great gameplay, improvement after improvement the game design has been changed in collaboration with teachers students and players and here you can see the different stages of all this process.

All different design from the beginning until now

In the beginning, there was only roots and no leaves.

Once the game mechanics have been tested I focus on the game production

Tested by students

The game was designed with the knowledge of the teachers and tested with the students, of course, the real process of the photosynthesis and cellular respiration is more complex and more detailed, for that we took the base in blocks to make this game playable and still fun.

Viva la fotosíntesis

This is the first educational game of large list of PaulEstudios games, my idea is to work in this field with several didactical tools for schools that can work also for the family using the gameplay as a base to teach concepts in any subject.

Playing this game you will learn which elements the plant needs to do the photosynthesis, wherein the cell occurs in a basic way, and how plants interact with others in the fight for resource search.

So, how much?

Well, This is the cost to create 500 copies of the game at least, because all of the parts, boxes, plastic container and instructions, I have done several working prototypes of the game with laser cut tokens and hand made box and also the board of the game and the cost of the campaign will be for an industrial production of the game.

A life transformed into a business (or I would like)

I always have felt different from others, I like what normal people don't like, didn't fit in this world, since I was a child I liked to create my own toys, my own distraction, most of them with paper and cardboard as a base material, then with wood, plastics, and some metals. So much so my friends liked to come to my home to play with my toys because we can "destroy" them instead of the expensive ones that their parents always tell not to broke them.

I grow up in a philosophy of DIY, makes me trust that what I do is better because I know how is made and what for.

This philosophy always works well when I do my own, but in adult life when I need to work for others don't. So I decided to bring my philosophy to my life and work for my own.

Thanks, Kickstarter for showing me that I was not alone and where is the world I fit.

I do all by my own, the design, the search for the materials, the prototype, the techniques to build them, the packaging design, search for customers. I don't have too much resources like a great team, a beautiful office, a nice photographic camera, I always concentrate all the focus on the product.

Normally I use open source software and operating system like Ubuntu, Gimp, Inkscape etc. they bring my childhood philosophy back, and I will continue with this philosophy even if I can grow as a company.

Me with some of the PaulEstudios products

Risks and challenges

Well could be that all the 500 units are not enough for all the backers, in that case, I will need to create another 500 units or maybe more, in that case, I will communicate the backers the new term for deliver the units that will be around 3-4 extra months.

In some case, the shipment could be delayed for any reason for that I will make sure to deliver the games with tracking numbers in order to follow the shipment, and if there is any problem for lose I will refund the cost of the game and shipment.